By: James Blears
There are some memorable names and spectacular legacies to consider, such as Muhammad Ali, John L Sullivan, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, George Forman, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson.
The big guys attract and command the box office, with their power slugging, thrills and spills, as no other division can hope to.
The sheer speed and genius of Ali. The gauntlet throw down immortal line of John L that he could lick any man. The smooth defensive skills and arrogant brilliance of Papa Jack. Mauling machine Dempsey, ultimately controlled, out boxed and tamed by cerebral Gene. The phenomenal punching power of Hungry Big George who flipped so many over with a grilling. Smokin Joe, who’ll be linked to, and interlocked with Ali from here to eternity. Larry, who fell just one short of Rocky’s unbeaten record, and the haunting enigma of troubled comet Michael Gerard Tyson.
Are we ever going to see their like again?
Time will obviously tell, but paradoxically money may actually prevent?
In their times and primes, especially in the earlier eras, the heavyweight championship of the world, and not the alphabet stew of today, was the richest prize, and most potent brew in sport. It had no close competitors in other sports, although admittedly Babe Ruth came pretty close, individually. But he was a one off. Basketball players, baseball stars and American footballers were mostly earning peanuts in comparison. But no longer!
As Bob Arum has pointed out so many times, nowadays if you’ve big and strong, there are many more lucrative options than heavyweight boxing. And many young athletes are taking them. The path to assured, structured and lasting rewards for god given talent, is nowhere near so rocky outside of heavyweight boxing.
With all respect to the champions of today-and I would not use Larry Holmes’ jock strap throw away comment, which was tainted with uncharacteristic bile, they cannot hold a candle to the greats. Today’s champs flicker and perhaps glow at their very best, but hardly shine.
There just isn’t the competition around, as in the last golden era of the seventies when especially Ali and Frazier really had their hands full with talented and rugged oncomers.
Perhaps a fragment of an answer, might lie in Cuba, which has produced so many wonderful boxers- some professional, but mostly amateur. In the post Castro era, we might see a young giant emerge in the mould of Teofilio Stevenson?
The large and capable Klitschko brothers from the Wild East, have not exactly set the heavyweight scene into raptures, so perhaps China might be the next global stop-gap?
Big guys can play basketball and baseball and come out the other end, more physically intact than many boxing champions.
When you’re young and feeling immortal, you can sometimes get a rush of blood to the head, but not in many sports that’s psychological and not associated with a haemorrhage from well directed, spiteful blockbuster cluster of blows. Damage is not inevitable, but the higher risk with boxing certainly is. The immensely dignified but wistful figure of Muhammad Ali, must have halted many young athletes in their tracks and given them food for thought.
As James Toney so aptly put it: “You play basketball, you play hockey, you play football, you play baseball-you don’t play boxing. This ain’t no game!”
